Welcome to a new section that I’ve had floating around my head since before worldofblackheroes.com began in 2010. Milestone Mondays will take place on a random Monday of each month and talk about, review or highlight art, cards, etc from the ’90s phenomenon that was Milestone comics.
Today we review Hardware #1!
Summary
Metcalf is a worker who was handpicked since childhood to work for Edwin Alva, the wealthy owner of Alva Technologies. Seven years after making Alva Tech even more successful than they had been before him Metcalf thinking he is heir apparent or at the very least is worthy of sharing in the profits talks with his boss only to be told he is just a cog in the overall machine and nothing special. What’s more, he can’t stop working for Alva because his contract is so ironclad.
Investigations on his part show that his boss is a big-time criminal with connections just about everywhere. When he hands this incriminating info over to the police and authorities nothing happens, that’s when he decides to take matters into his own hands.
He creates a suit of armor using Alva’s resources and decides to put an end to Alva’s lucrative criminal network himself.
He is quite successful at this venture so much in fact that Alva hires a super-powered assassin to deal with him.
What I Thought…
The analogy of the caged bird and how it will never escape made me think of an artist or writer stuck in a contract with a major corporation and how yes they are occasionally given the illusion that they are “free” because they are let out of their “cages” but they are trapped and don’t even realize it.
When this issue came out there was an interview with McDuffie who likened the story of Hardware to what was happening to him and his peers in the corporate machine of comics. This breaking away was literal in the real world and it’s pretty much the same for Metcalf.
Getting in bed with most big-name companies has proven problematic for many a rapper and hip-hop artist even now. Sisqo was blacklisted in the prime of his career when he was deemed ‘problematic’ because he wanted to use his hometown friends to mix his music. Lil Kim likewise because of contract breakdowns with Atlantic has all but disappeared. Every artist signed with Sean Combs Bad boy has horror stories to share.
Honestly this link between reality and fiction is ingenious, to say the least, and still so relevant today. 
I also found the Metcalf as a character very relatable with his job and the ungratefulness found there. This allows any working-class person to easily inject themselves into the story. This simple analogy allows the situation presented to be just about anybody’s job.
Sure you work your ass off, do overtime, you may even be the best there is BUT make no mistake your nothing in the grand scheme of things you are just a simple replaceable piece of a larger machine. Unless you are, your own boss your corner…she is very dark.
That’s something to think about for all aspiring writers and artists out there.
Some people may think of Hardware as an Iron man knockoff but they would be remiss to think so as the similarities are purely superficial.
The action scenes and story complemented each other well and I can definitely see how this title was the beginning of the “Dakotaverse”. McDuffie knows his stuff.
This is Denys Cowan’s art at its very best. It Compliments the story in every way. The action was explosive the ethnicity of each character was expertly conveyed. Cowan has also given Hardware an eclectic costume which was like nothing before it or since. Its intricate, ornate, rustic and has enough of a mix of future tech and stuff that was probably laying around to be believable.
As smart as Batman/Iron man with tech to boot. this is an instant classic.
The Ugly
The title that started a revolution can it honestly be given anything les than a 4.5/5 Highly recommended
An well above average book with black characters who weren’t just badly written versions of existing white characters. McDuffie gave us real conversations in the book , so our hero never came across corny or fake! The tech used was real cutting edge and different as was Hardware’s look, some of my fellow fans hated his trash-tech look but it fit into the whole “salvaged tech hero” theme! One of my favorite Milestone books.
I agree with Kaiju. Hardware was the start of what is now 20 plus long boxes. With an intelligence on par with Batman, but without the billions of dollars of a Bruce Wayne or a Tony Stark. So what he accomplished with his trash-tech may prove that he is more intelligent. There hasn’t been another DC comic that I really looked forward to seeing on Wednesdays then Hardware. Maybe this is why what started as a DC/Milestone comic collection is really a Marvel comic collection.
I wonder if maybe Hardware, whom through some type of ultimate crisis or some type of collision of worlds, is really Marvel Superhero trapped in a DC universe?